Equivalent Exchange
by moodiful819
Summary: The world is ordered by balance, where one person's happiness is built on the back of another's sadness. Sakura tries not to think of that too much. - Kakasaku. M for gore.


Inspired by Surprise Homecoming. I had come out of the shower and saw my mom watching the show on TV channel-flipping. Since it looked interesting, I stayed a little while to watch. Basically, it's about military families/couples reuniting by surprising their loved ones with the fact they were home. The section I watched was a family reunion where the father was going to surprise the kids with his homecoming by going to Disneyland. But first, he got to reunite with his wife and after he was dismissed from active duty, she basically launched herself at him and they were really happy and I was touched. But I believe in balance of the world and a voice in the back of my head wondered how much sacrifice had to be made to get to that moment. This is what came out of it.

[Written quite a while back. Early June in fact. I do not own Naruto.]

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><p><em>It's over.<em>

That's the one thought that resounds in Sakura's head constantly on loop as she stares at Konoha's west gate. The gate through which a mass exodus of manpower, weapons, and friends occurred to combat the last of Kabuto's grab at power.

Five years. They only had five years of peace before another war broke out. In a way, it was a blessing that peace had lasted so long, but it seems painfully short when she thinks about the Academy that was just filling back up again—the friends she knew who had just finished physical rehabilitation after the last war. After that, five years of not worrying about an increased risk of dying, of a way of life not being destroyed seems so short, like a dream. However, to the children still having classes in the Academy, who had sit through emergency drill after emergency drill, five years is a long time. Their entire lifespan for some. When the war started two years ago, Sakura had hoped those children can live a lot longer. Now they can. Funny how life works.

For the past two years, Sakura has been biting her nails. Not physically speaking (though she had her own stress-relieving habits), but metaphorically speaking. Previous to the announcement that Konoha had gone to war with Sound, groups that had gone on missions in the area often went missing. Though it was an often accepted risk of the job (Sound-Fire relations were still shaky at best), it wasn't until a body-retrieval team found a Konoha nin pinned by their joints to trees and Tsunade had a box delivered to her office with a decapitated head wearing their village's hitai-ate that a declaration of war had been thrown. Apparently, Kabuto had managed to slip out at the end of the war and rally Orochimaru's old troops for one last attempt at a power-grab from Konoha, and while they were only moderately-sized after five years, thanks to Kabuto's genetic-engineering and experimentation, the army was more than enough to be a match for Konoha's.

And so, war was declared. The children were taught the emergency drills and shop-owners began to buy boards to close up their windows as families stocked up on canned foods. Naruto, who had been in the midst of training for Hokage, flung himself back into the fray to lead the front lines as Sai was drafted into Reconnaissance. Sakura packed her bags with supplies for outdoor surgery and mentally-prepared herself for the act of doing triage once more while Kakashi tiredly packed scrolls and kunai and a well-worn orange book into his. As for Sasuke, he never came home after the Third Great Shinobi War. The bounty on his head was pushed aside and forgotten, but it seemed he was unwilling to return to a place of such conflicting emotions. Last she heard, he was a vagabond last spotted in the Land of the Mist.

When Kakashi picked her up at her apartment, he greeted her with a kiss on the forehead that he adored and that she had thankfully grown into. As she stood looking at him, the same sad worn look on his face just as she'd seen during the last war, the tide of her fear and anxiety rushed forth and she threw herself against him. Her tiny body gripped his flak jacket desperately and in between were left all the things unsaid. But Hatake Kakashi is not called a genius for nothing, and lifting her chin with a gloved hand, he smiled down at her.

"It'll be alright," he reassured before brushing his lips against hers, covering her mouth in a sweet kiss before they began the long trip towards the battlefield.

That had been two years ago. Two long years of fighting prefaced by five years of peace where Konoha had been rebuilt; where Naruto had been welcomed back a hero; and a mutual understanding had enveloped the five major nations. It was also during these five years that she had dated Kakashi as a mutual joke between them (let's try it and see what happens, they said over their fifth—eighth—twelfth(?) drink that night?) that grew into a real relationship where she was happy and loved—where they both were. To be honest, those days were the happiest of her life and she'd thought they'd never end. Or at least, that was until the war declaration was made and her world fell around her. But she was a big girl and she would make the best of what she was dealt, consoling herself with the thought that at least she would be fighting alongside the man she loved.

Fast forward to less than a year after the war started, when Sakura was cornered in a dense pocket of forest. Two of her team were already down, throats split open and trampled underfoot the monstrous man—monster—_thing_—that Kabuto had created, lumbering heavily as its barrel-chest heaved with every breath it took as blood dripped from the large blade-like claws that protruded from behind its meaty fingers as three of her teammates struggled to devise a plan, the last one having run for help. It swung its arms, batting down trees like straws as it aimed for her and only her. She scrambled back, pushing and panicking her way up a tree like a trapped animal, breathing heavily with fear as it swung at her stomach with the intent of pulling out her intestines like candy from a piñata, crying out when one claw managed to catch her side, ripping her out of the tree and onto the ground just in time for the backup to see her being thrown onto the ground like a ragdoll. The last things she saw were Kakashi's terrified eye meeting hers, the sight of her intestines sitting atop her skin, and a flock of medic nin hovering over her like a swarm of white butterflies.

When she next woke up, she was in a hospital in Konoha, Tsunade frowning heavily at her charts with vehement, damning commands that 'this is it. You're out of the war. You're not going back out there. You're finished.' while all the while, her mind flitted out to Kakashi who was still fighting.

At 22-years-old, Haruno Sakura was pulled from the war. The battle that has discharged her left her a foot-long scar over the left side of her abdomen and months of rehab to rebuild the torn muscle. She was told to be thankful, that it was a relatively-superficial wound and other people in her position who had survived could no longer function without the help of a machine, but all she could see was an ugly scar and the sight of trampled, bloodied corpses at night.

She soon fell into depression afterwards, managing to eat but never leaving her apartment bedroom. It had gotten so bad that Kakashi was specially summoned back to talk to her. When he asked to see her scar—look at the evidence of when he was unable to save her—she initially refused, citing that it was ugly—that _she_ was ugly. But he charmed his way, as he always does, into letting him see it, and they made love later that night. The next morning, he proposed to her because he couldn't stand being that close to losing Sakura again and promised that her scar was the last horrible thing he would ever let happen to her, all of this right before he returned to the battlefield amidst a sea of uncertainty and spilt blood.

They kept in touch through letters that Sakura saved, often because responses from the battlefield were weeks in between and they were perhaps the last she would ever hear from him. Days when the mail held a little bit more were always her favorite because it meant he had survived a little while longer, and she eagerly awaited the days when he was granted leave to rest a while before going back due to the length of the war. Those days, they never left each other's side before he had to go back, always looking a little more tired than when she last saw him. It was on one of these leaves that she had gotten pregnant, ensuring she would never step foot on the battlefield again until the baby was brought to term.

That was five months ago. Now, she was five-months pregnant and living in their now-shared apartment after she moved into his home, waiting at the mouth of the gates. Others were with her as well, standing around in a crowd to await the homecoming of their troops. Unlike the others, she didn't care about the glorious turnabout they had, or how Naruto's quick thinking had led the enemy into a trap that won the war. The ideas of glory and winning seemed hollow when she remembered those trampled bodies in bits and flashes behind her closed eyes; all she wanted was her husband back home.

And so she waited, nervously wringing her dress as she chewed on the inside of her lip and assured herself that she wasn't dreaming because the war was really over and they would never ever have to do this again for as long as they lived, when the first tufts of hair over the horizon signaled the troops' return.

They advanced closer to the gates, carrying the injured on their backs as they walked back tired and beaten, but alive. Sakura scanned the faces, recognizing most of them as patients of hers once. They were also painfully young; the youngest she saw was no older than the Mist Nin she met on her first real mission.

'_How could we do this to them?'_ she asked herself as she looked at the haunted faces of the boys and girls who walked by. Most of them didn't look like they even hit puberty yet.

Around her, the crowds began to cheer. Naruto was being thrown into the air by the crowd behind her as celebrations surrounded her, Sakura still scanning the advancing waves for the infamous Copy-Nin.

Suddenly, over the hill, she found him, his shoulders stooped and eyes tired. He was even more worn by this war than the last one, but she was so elated to see him, so happy he was alive that he had barely stepped one foot into the gate before she threw herself as him, lavishing him in kisses because _he was alive. He was alive. He was home and he was alive._

Kakashi stumbled slightly at the sudden weight, but welcomed it as he returned the tight embrace, crushing her even closer as he breathed in her scent and savored the feeling of being home in his wife's arms.

Uncharacteristically, Kakashi peeled off his mask before covering his wife's lips with his, and Sakura realized how much she missed his kiss and the depth of how much she missed him. As they stayed in each other's embrace, she let her mind wander over him, engraving this moment forever. The feel of his lips on hers, the brush of his hair over her temple in the breeze, the smell of sandalwood that managed to linger over his skin forever, the feel of his hands on her waist.

Unbidden, she wondered how much bloodshed he saw with the same eyes that beheld her so fully; how many bodies he had to walk over to return home; how many people he killed with the same hands that now held her so desperately. Somewhere in her mind, a voice rang out that the people of Sound had been doing the same thing Konoha had done: fought for their beliefs and protect their way of life, for which they had been vilified. The thought paralyzed her inside, turning her bubbles of elation into drops of guilt that sank like stones determined to drag her down; the welcome-home kiss now suddenly tasting bitter on her tongue.

However, the feeling was short-lived. Now was not the time to think of things like that—not when her husband was finally home and they had a baby on the way and they had just won the war.

So she pushed the thoughts from her head, locking them safely in the same box where she kept all her other regrets. Maybe later, when she was alone, she would take these thoughts out and ponder them away, letting the guilt wrack a small part of her brain. But for right now, her husband was home, her baby had a father, and she was happy.


End file.
